By Faraz Ahmad, IANS
New Delhi : The Communists who fought the 2004 general election as allies of the Congress party in Andhra Pradesh are drifting away from it. The police firing on Left workers in Khammam seems to have been the trigger for what many predict could be an eventual parting of ways.
Six Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists were killed and eight injured Saturday when police fired at protestors at Mudigonda, about 200 km from here, during the Left-sponsored state-wide agitation seeking land for the poor.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) and the CPI-M had given a call for a shutdown in Andhra Pradesh Saturday against the use of force by police against their activists at different places Thursday when the firing took place.
On her part, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has sought an immediate report from the state government on the police firing. And Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy too has ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident.
In private, Congress members in Andhra Pradesh are seething at the CPI-M and the CPI.
"What business do the communists have to attack the state government when in West Bengal they have Singur and Nandigram?" questioned Digvijay Singh, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh.
CPI-M state secretary B.V. Raghavulu and CPI secretary K. Narayana and other leaders of the two parties had been on an indefinite fast outside the Khammam district headquarters since July 22 asking for land reforms. On Friday night they were picked up by police and taken to the Gandhi Hospital, after which the two parties called for a state-wide strike Saturday.
Digvijay Singh was upset with the state secretaries of the two communist parties for making their stir a major public issue.
CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury, while on his way to Khammam, told IANS: "This attack is most barbaric and unprovoked on unarmed people. At midnight the police picked up the state secretaries of CPI-M and CPI. And in that village (Modugonda) there were not more than 300-400 people."
Yechury also criticised Digvijay Singh's comments.
"They are comparing this to Nandigram. But in Nandigram he (Digvijay) had asked for Budhadeb's (Bhattacharya) resignation. Applying the same yardstick, they should now sack Rajasekhara Reddy."
A Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh, criticising the Left parties, said: "They are just paving the way to go back and align with Babu (N. Chandrababu Naidu, chief of Telugu Desam Party) in the next elections and all this is just an excuse."
Incidentally, as soon as Raghavulu and Narayana were hospitalised, Naidu rushed there to express his solidarity with the communists.